A CLASS DESIGNED TO SERVE UP GOOD WAITERS

Phil VettelCHICAGO TRIBUNE

There`s no job that seems so outwardly easy as that of a waiter. Customers tell you what they want, you write it down, you tell the chef, he cooks it, you bring it to the table, refill the water, pour some coffee, collect the check and pocket the tip. Piece o` cake, as they say at Baker`s Square.

Paradoxically, the same job can intimidate a first-time waiter into near paralysis. How do those other waiters possibly keep their tables straight?

This person wants soup instead of salad, this one wants salad dressing on the side--plus you`re supposed to know the menu and the wine list and the daily specials like your own name. And almost all of it to be learned while you work.

James Simpson thinks there ought to be a less stressful place to learn these things. Accordingly, Simpson, an instructor at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago (CHIC), which offers classes in professional cooking, baking and bartending, will begin a course in November titled ''The Art of Table Service,'' designed to introduce would-be waiters to the mysteries of fine dining.

Simpson is no beginner when it comes to introductory courses, having designed and taught CHIC`s bartending class since the institute`s inception 2 1/2 years ago. He has unleashed scores of bartenders on the city`s saloons in that time, and says he hopes for similar success with this program.

That may take a while. Though CHIC has offered the course several times, it wasn`t until last month that anyone registered to take it. That first class became Simpson`s test group, and it`s hard to decide whether students or instructor learned more.

For instance, of the three students who attended the first session (there are two five-hour classes), only one returned for the second. (One student phoned her regrets and arranged to participate in a future class; the other simply failed to show.) Simpson made the best of the one-on-one tutorial that his lecture had become and altered his lesson plan further when he learned that the remaining student was an experienced waiter looking for some fine-tuning prior to managing a restaurant.

This turned the lesson on tableside service into something of a disaster. Though Simpson patiently explained the basics of preparing Caesar salad, the student clearly had his own ideas. For one thing, he said, he disliked anchovies; Simpson allowed that for this one demonstration the anchovies could be deleted. CHIC director Linda Calafiore, impersonating a customer for this segment, was dismayed. ''Not even a few anchovies?'' she asked plaintively.

The student also was very strict about salt. ''I don`t use it; I don`t think anybody should,'' he said. ''I`ll put it on the table if the customers really want it, but I absolutely refuse to cook with it, and I tell them that.'' True to his word, he left the salt out of the Caesar salad. (We wish him tremendous luck in his new enterprise.)

Simpson doesn`t pretend that a graduate of his course will be ready to manage a restaurant; his goals are much more modest. ''The course is designed for someone with little or no experience,'' he says. ''I`d hope that after the course, the individual would be able to get a job interview and know enough and be smart enough to be hired. He`d already know how to wait on tables, how to deal with customers. Given the training specific to that particular restaurant, he`ll know everything else, or know how to find out.''

The course starts with a general primer on restaurants, Simpson says. ''I teach the background--how a restaurant works, how management, accounting and advertising fit together, how the kitchen interacts with the staff. I go over general restaurant and cooking terms and what they mean. I go over liquor--a surprising number of my (bartending) students know nothing about liquor--and the various bar brands. They practice carrying trays (in the approved, shoulder-height fashion). They learn how to write a check.

''After this first class, I`d say I need to teach more insight,'' he says. ''How to organize yourself--if you`re going back toward the kitchen, take something else with you. That seems terribly obvious, but a lot of people need to hear that. How to deal with unruly or irate customers. How to avoid

--delicately--the customer who wants to talk your ear off.''

A stumbling block to this class, Simpson says, was CHIC`s cramped quarters. Currently the school occupies a basement kitchen at 247 E. Ontario St. Instruction on waiting tables, therefore, had to be somewhat abstract. That will change in a few weeks, when CHIC moves to its new, spacious quarters at 858 N. Orleans St. The extra space, which will allow CHIC to expand its course offerings, also will include a full dining room, which will serve breakfast and lunch and provide hands-on experience under actual restaurant conditions for cooks and waiters.

And experience is hard for newcomers to get. That was the problem Simpson says he faced when he first decided to become a bartender.

''I was a waiter at a club, and tips were very bad. But they (management) gave the bartender 10 percent of the ring (sales) each night, plus an hourly wage plus tips. So when a spot opened up, I told them I knew how to do it. I lied. But fortunately it was the kind of place where everybody ordered the same thing.''